


How They Train Them In France

by LilyAngorian



Series: A Gangster Always Needs A Nurse [3]
Category: Peaky Blinders (TV)
Genre: And bittersweet, Because he's always getting himself beaten up whatever series it is, F/M, Featuring all the usual, Flirting, He was bound to run into Stella again, Short, Spoilers for series 3 but not really, Teasing, Tommy keeps ending up in hospital
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-29
Updated: 2016-06-29
Packaged: 2018-07-18 23:09:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7334422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LilyAngorian/pseuds/LilyAngorian





	How They Train Them In France

Tommy couldn't move his head. He could hear the blood pounding, hear every single footstep in the corridor, every hushed whisper down the hall, every bird scratching at the roof, tapping at the windows. And then he heard something else, the only sound worth him attempting to force his eyes open, blinking into the light.

"Looks like you've got yourself into a real mess this time.”

The sound was silvery, light and teasing.

"And there she is. The voice of my conscience. Shame you weren't around earlier, you could have chastised them as well as me."

"It's been a while, I'll give you that. But I had no doubt you'd be back." 

"Consider me touched by your concern."

"You've suffered extensive internal bleeding, not to mention the damage to your cranium. Your vision will be compromised, perhaps forever, and goodness knows what it's done to your state of mind."

"I think you'll find that was fucked before I got my head kicked in."

"Oh I'm not denying that. It can't have helped though.”

She smiled, and he almost mirrored it.

"Are you the only nurse ever on duty?"

"Are you the only Shelby who ever gets into such a state? I’d never seen your sister before now. She'd been sitting here with you since you came in, but I imagine she had better things to do than watch you sleep all day."

“How is she?"

"She's very intelligent, very opinionated. I was pleasantly surprised."

"My sister is her own woman. Her _affiliations_ are her own."

"That's a very bold claim from a man who runs his family as a business."

"Once again, I bow to your superior wisdom about the inner workings of my life. I need a cigarette.” 

Stella ignored the latter.

"I doubt all the rumours are lies. No one has that amount of imaginative inspiration.”

Tommy sighed.

"Go on then, I'm fascinated. What do they say on the wards these days?"

"They say that you're playing with fire. Foreign fire. And it's all too close to burning you up."

"Now where have you heard that I wonder?"

"Patients. Nurses. It's hard to say. I hear so much nowadays."

"Well maybe you would be a little more attentive to your patients if you kept your nose out of the gossip."

He gestured to himself. His clothing was sticking to him with sweat, his white collar and neck stained with crimson streaks.

"Aren't nurses meant to wash their patients, Stella?”

“The doctors didn’t think we should move you more than you had to be until we’d assessed the extent of the damage. After that, well your sister suggested that we cut your clothes free, but we thought that undisturbed sleep might help your traumatic head injury a little more than a warm bath.”

“Well I appear to be awake now."

“Yes you do."

She worked slowly, carefully, making sure not to jolt him so that his head slammed into the brace around it. Buttons carefully pulled through the loops, scissors slicing through the fabric over where she did not want to move him. Once his upper half was exposed, she wrapped her hands around the wet cloth, stroked over the scars still marking his chest, where she had painstakingly sewn skin to skin all those months ago. His chest seemed sunken and pasty, matching the sweaty pallor of his face. The carmine splash that seeped into the cloth seemed even starker in comparison, so she changed it for another. He seemed to drift in and out of consciousness, eyes flickering. But when it came to unbuttoning his trousers, her fingers faltered slightly, and his voice was acutely alert and teasing.

"Shy all of a sudden?"

"Nothing I haven't seen before, I'm sure."

Stella ran the scissors down from the waistband, neat nails lightly scraping against his thighs, along the lines of his calves, slipping the fabric free when she reached the bottom of each leg. She pressed the cloth against his legs from ankle to thigh. The water was ecstasy against his skin, even with the sheets rucked up and sweaty beneath him. Stella still wouldn’t meet his eye, her focus clear in her shallow breaths. She was far too precise to catch the fabric of his underclothes, beneath which she could make out a hard line, but she could feel him tensing as if he expected her to. 

"Something the matter Mr Shelby?"

"Did you have any proper training, or was it all just what you picked up in France?”

She saw him shift his position as much as he could manage, saw his hand move fractionally in a specific direction, before he evidently decided against it, left it heavy at his side. Stella felt an almost perverse pleasure in watching him fight his natural instincts. He was no different to the rest, as much as he’d like to think he was.

"If you have a problem with my methods you're welcome to request a different nurse."

She reached across him to move the detached sheet beneath the mattress, and watched his eyes soften as her hands trailed across his lower abdomen - only slightly, only for a second - and heard a breath drawn in deeper. She smiled, and turned to soak and wring the cloth in the metal bowl beside her.

"You're playing games with me.”

"I'm doing my job Mr Shelby."

"You've called me Tommy before."

"Yes. I have. But lets at least keep up the pretence that neither of us mean anything to each other. After all, I’m being paid to do this.”

“You’d do well as a whore. One of the ones no-one could ever afford.”

“Not even you?”

“Oh I respect you far too much to do that.”

“Of course you do.”

She mentally shook herself. This had all got rather out of hand, especially given where they were. She reminded herself that she wasn't back in that lonely room, out of sight, out of control. There were rules. She put the cloth and bowl down and looked instead at his chart on the table beside him.

Stella gingerly lay her fingers to rest on his temples. She leaned in closer to check his eyes, her face inches from his own as she concentrated. He could feel her breath, make out the pale blue of the veins on her neck beneath her milky skin. When she finally pulled back, he caught the gentle floral notes of soap clinging to her skin.

"I need you to follow my finger with your eyes, without moving your head.”

Tommy obeyed, but his voice purred with a slight bemusement when he spoke.

"Does this fall within your job description? I thought I'd had a doctor arranged to treat me.”

Stella kept her focus on his reactions, her voice unaffected. 

"We're understaffed. Not even you can do anything to fix that.”

He rolled his eyes and tried to turn his head to the side, but the brace around his head did not allow him the motion. He winced, and Stella found herself reaching out to soothe him, her hand cupping his cheek instinctively. At this, his voice softened.

"So you're stepping into bigger shoes.”

"I'm doing what I have to.”

"Why did they assign you to treat me?"

"I don't know."

"You're lying. You know something."

Stella looked irritated, but Tommy could almost make out faint embarrassment. 

"When they brought you in...you asked for me."

"I don't remember-"

"-Well you wouldn't. You were barely conscious, bleeding everywhere and, well, you came to for a few moments and all you would say was my name.”

“Your name?”

“Yes. I suppose it was worth remembering, in a medical context at least.

"And you decided to treat me?"

"I was who you wanted. The decision wasn't mine to make ."

"So this is all against your will?"

She did not reply, taking her hands and placing them carefully on either side of his neck, manipulating it slowly up towards his face.

"And that night in my house. In my bedroom. That was against your will as well?"

She did not reply.

"Seems like I'm not the only one around here who knows what they want."

"And what do you want?”

“Oh far too much. But these days I’m in a much better position to get it all.”

“You’ve certainly gone up in the world.”

“Since the last time I saw you. A lot’s changed since then.”

He looked subdued for the first time, some of the humour in his eyes lost. Stella realised what he was implying.

“I…I heard about your wife. I’m sorry.”

It sounded weak, almost insincere. 

“You never met her.”

“No. When we last met she was just a letter in your desk drawer.”

“And what were you doing looking in there?”

“Getting above my station. I couldn’t resist the mystery of a man like you.”

“I’m not much of a mystery Stella.”

He continued, curious.

“D’you read anything interesting?”

“Only that she was in love with you. But a love letter in a closed drawer usually isn’t a good thing. So it’s still a mystery to me.”

‘The drawer didn’t stay closed for long."

“What was she like?”

“She was…She was Grace. I can’t do her justice with words.”

“I really am sorry.”

He nodded, an effort to attempt to disregard the conversation, and so she fell into silence. She dabbed at him gently with a small towel, removing the last traces of moisture from his skin. 

“I think its soup for dinner. I smelt tomato when I passed the kitchen earlier.”

“How long before I’ll be able to eat solids?”

“Its not your mouth that the problem…Well, perhaps it is, but not when it comes to eating. But I’m afraid we don’t run one of your fancy London restaurants here. If you don’t want what’s on the menu for dinner, you don’t eat."

“You look thinner.”

She tilted her head slightly, a combination of amusement and disapproval.

“Well I don’t get a patients dinner, even if he doesn’t eat it himself. But flattery won’t get you anything you haven’t already paid for.”

“It wasn’t flattery. And I wasn’t aware you charged for conversation.”

“I don’t. Patients here have to enough to pay for. I appreciate your concern Mr Shelby, but I imagine you’ve more important things to worry yourself with.”

“If you need money-“

“-No. I don’t.”

“You don’t know what I was going to say.”

“I’ve a pretty good idea. I don’t need charity Mr Shelby.”

“Okay, so I’ve offended you. But you won’t last long putting your pride before hunger, no matter how much you’d prefer to ignore that.”

“What would you know?”

“I know Stella. All this finery, all the clothes and the cars and the houses, it doesn’t wash away the filth. Doesn’t burn away the memory of teaching my brothers to steal so that we had enough to scrape together a meal between us at the end of the day. Of squeezing five of us under the blanket at night so that we didn’t freeze to death in the winter.”

Stella nodded, her expression tinged with regret.

“I’m opening an orphanage at some point, in Graces memory. If this doesn’t pay what you need, if you wanted a change…I could do with someone around who knows about medicine and healing.”

“For the children, or for your sake? Will I be cleaning cuts and scrapes on knees, or stitching up stab wounds?”

“Both, in all truth. Hospitals aren’t always convenient places for me to spend time in. But you’d have a decent wage, and you’d be with the children most of the time.”

“I’ll...think about it.”

“Good."

“I should go…There are other people who need me.”

Tommy smiled wryly.

“There always will be.”

She placed a fresh blanket on the end of the bed, pulled a new sheet carefully over him. She made her way to the door, having slipped his cigarettes and matches into his hand. 

“Stella. I’m glad I asked for you. I doubt it’ll be the last time.”

“I hope it is. For your sake. This isn’t a game Tommy, its your life. You may not value it, but you’ve got a family, got people who depend on you. Don't squander what you’ve been given.”

And with that the door closed behind her, and silence fell.


End file.
